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As old as the hills – but which one?

ROBERT BULLARD looks into the background of a county family with a confusing lineage

By a strange quirk of fate, 2005 is the major anniversary of several of Shropshire’s most distinguished personalities – and all from one family! Everyone in Shropshire, I suspect, knows The Column, in front of Shirehall, on the outskirts of Shrewsbury. Many will have wandered around the follies – or played golf perhaps – at Hawkstone. Or walked with family and friends through Attingham Park. But did you know that all three spectacular sites are memories to the same family, the Hills, whose links with Shropshire stretch back over 500 years? (Shropshire Magazine – February 2005)


But, be warned! For the family’s practice of repeatedly naming themselves after their two ‘founding fathers’ makes dipping into their history prone to confusion – over the centuries there were eight Rowland Hills, three Richard Hills and two sisters whose sons changed their name back to Hill!

The origin of the family’s fortunes was down to two men, the first of whom, Rowland Hill (1495-1561), who was born 510 years ago, in Hodnet.

Rowland was a highly successful London-based wool merchant, exporting cloth to Flanders and importing linen. He was so rich and had such high status - he became Lord Mayor of London (1549-50) - that he even leant money to Henry VIII.

But despite his elite, London-based life, he continued to show a keen interest in his native Shropshire. Among his benefactions, 450 years ago, was an endowment for Market Drayton’s former Grammar School, whose pupils included Robert Clive.

But it was Sir Rowland’s buying of land and property where he left his greatest mark. Most notable among his acquisitions was Hawkstone, in 1556, for which, along with the estate of Soulton, Wem, he paid £700.

Sir Rowland was a deeply pious man who never raised the rents of his one thousand plus tenants and on his deathbed arranged for the distribution of 12d to each house in the wards of the city of London. And when he died, childless, in 1561, his vast estate was distributed among his Shropshire relations – Hawkstone being left to a cousin, Humphrey Hill.

‘The Great Hill’

The second accumulator of the family wealth was Sir Richard Hill (1655-1727). He was born 350 years ago and inherited the Hawkstone estate after it had passed through the hands of three more Sir Rowland’s before him.

Good fortune led Sir Richard to meet the Earl of Ranelagh, who appointed Sir Richard as his deputy when he became Paymaster General. Both jobs enabled their occupants to grow rich by privately investing the money that passed through their hands – but it made Sir Richard’s father nervous, who once said “My son Dick makes money very fast: God send that he gets it honestly”.

However, Sir Richard was more than just a cunning accountant. He also undertook several diplomatic posts on behalf of William III, who declared him to be one of his greatest ministers.

But poor health forced him to cut short his career overseas and ‘tired with war and travel’ (as he had inscribed on his marble monument in Hodent church) Sir Richard lived out his days in London, purchasing further property back in Shropshire. He purchased the Atcham estate in 1700, and commissioned the building of Tern Hall there in 1701; and in the 1720s he commenced the rebuilding of the house and gardens at Hawkstone.

When he died in 1727, Sir Richard left Hawkstone to his brother’s son, another Rowland, and Atcham/Tern Hall to his sister’s son, who had changed his name back to Hill and was also called Richard! With additional bequests of £63,618 (worth least £2m today) it was enough to set up his descendants for generations - and to pay for the significant changes that immediately followed.

Development of Hawkstone Park

The above inheritor of Hawkstone Park, Sir Rowland Hill (1705-1783), was born 300 years ago and it was he and his son, another Sir Richard (1732-1808), who were the principal developers of Hawkstone.

Sir Rowland’s changes concentrated on the house, including the building of a great saloon, which he dedicated to his uncle with paintings of him and his patrons, King William III and Queen Mary. Sir Richard’s changes concentrated on the garden, where he used the opportunity to promote his philanthropic Methodist ideals by increasing public access and providing employment for local people. He also commemorated the family’s ‘founding father’ with a statue of ‘the original’ Sir Rowland on top of a 112 feet high Tuscan column.

By the late eighteenth century Hawkstone was one of the show places in the country. Most notable among its visitors was the lexicographer, Dr Samuel Johnson, who described the house as ‘magnificent’, and the surrounding park as ‘a region abounding with striking scenes and terrifick grandeur.’

Although he played no part in the developments at Hawkstone, it was Sir Richard’s nephew, another Rowland, who was General Lord Viscount Hill (1727-1843), second in command to Wellington, and whose statue is on top of the column in Shrewsbury.

Building of Attingham Park

On the Atcham estate, meanwhile, things were going less smoothly. Richard Hill the inheritor of Tern Hall (1723-34) had died when only 10 years old and his father, Thomas Hill (1693-1782), who had changed his name from Harwood, had to wait until his 13th child before another son survived – Noel Hill (1745-1789) was born 260 years ago.

Thomas Hill was an austere character that did not like spending money and played no part in the developments at Tern Hall. But his second wife, Susanna, and their son, Noel, pressed for changes to the property – the bulk of which were made after Thomas finally died, aged 89.

Using the architect George Steuart, a former assistant and rival to Robert Adam, Noel Hill - by now a Baron for his services to William Pitt’s government - decided not to demolish the existing house but to wrap around it another, more fashionable building, which he called Attingham Park. (Tern Hall was demolished about 1856, leaving an empty courtyard in the centre of the house.)

When Noel died in 1789 most of exterior work had been completed, but it still left his eldest son, another Thomas (1770-1823), the 2nd Lord Berwick, to finish the interiors.

Decline

And here the story of the two family branches meet up again - albeit acrimoniously. For in 1796 there was an inter-family dispute as to whether the Hills of Hawkstone or of Attingham (who won) should contest the seat of Shrewsbury in the general election. In an attempt to win votes each side spent upwards of £30,000 (nearly £1m today) - a sum that neither could afford and after which both estates went into decline.

In Attingham, Thomas Hill’s extravagancy for collecting paintings forced him into bankruptcy in 1827 – even a sale of the house’s entire contents could not get rid of the debts. But things were finally rescued several generations later when the 8th Lord Berwick (1877-1947) and his wife dedicated their lives to renewing and enhancing the house’s interiors, and in 1947 the estate was bequeathed to the National Trust.

Similarly rash spending took place at Hawkstone, where the Third Viscount was declared bankrupt in 1894. There too an auction of the contents could not clear the debts, and the family were forced to sell the estate in 1906. But comparatively recently the park has been restored, and in 1993 it reopened to the public.

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